


Define: Best Friend

by dametokillfor



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Spoilers for S07E11: Things We Lost In The Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 01:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5987944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dametokillfor/pseuds/dametokillfor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene from 7x11, from an incredibly bitter and slightly drunk Dalaric fan. </p><p>After the events of 'Things We Lost In The Fire', Ric finds out Damon's free from the stone and has some choice words for him. Damon has a few confessions of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Define: Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Without ranting too much, I'm getting incredibly wound up with the way Damon and Ric's on screen relationship has suddenly become non-existent in the show, to the extent I'm starting to question whether I want to continue watching after five years.
> 
> Caroline asking Stefan why Damon would be at Ric's baby shower was the final straw, and I had to invent my own headcanons in order to be able to get through the rest of the episode. 
> 
> I dedicate this to anybody else who is starting to wonder just what _family_ , and _best friend_ actually means to the shows writers, because our definitions are very different. 
> 
> This was written in about two hours, after half a bottle of Jim Beam.

As soon as Damon opens the door, he’s hit with a fist to the face. 

He instinctively grabs his nose, while getting ready to snap the neck of whoever hit him. His nose is hurting, and there’s a very real chance it will heal crooked. He’s about to lash out, when the fist hits him again, this time accompanied with a voice.

“When were you going to tell me you were back, asshole?”

Ric sounds disappointed, hurt. It’s almost as if he genuinely cares about where Damon has been for the past three months. Damon shakes off the pain, drops his hands.

“I was thinking never, to be perfectly honest. I was going to let you and your twins live a perfectly, normal happy life, believing I was lost to a creepy, mystical, witchy stone.”

Damon tries to make it sound like a joke, but it sounds all too serious, too bitter. The look on Ric’s face tells him his attempts failed. 

“Ric…”

“I should punch you again.” Ric announces. He doesn’t, instead he pushes past Damon and heads for the lounge. There’s the sound of a bottle being opened, a long gulp being taken, and the bottle being slammed on the table. Damon follows Ric into the room, to see his friend with his head in his hands. 

“Ric, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t fucking say that.” Ric says, before looking up at Damon, “Don’t fucking apologise, not when I can tell you don’t mean it. You would have… fuck, you’d have let me leave without knowing you were still alive.”

“Technically, I wasn’t dead…”

“Don’t split hairs, Damon.” Ric tells him, reaching for the bottle again, “Don’t make this a fucking joke.”

Before Ric can close his hand around the bottle, Damon snatches it from the table. It’s mostly gone, and now Damon really looks at his friend, he can see Ric’s worse for wear already. 

“Ric…”

“Don’t Ric me. Don’t… don’t say anything.” Ric reaches out to snatch the bottle back. Damon pulls it out of his reach, takes a long drag. He sits next to Ric, just close enough so Ric knows he’s there. 

“I should have told you.” Damon admits, “You deserved to know I was back.”

“So you could push me away again, right?” Ric sounds bitter, sounds hurt, “Like you’ve been doing since your mom died, since you found out Caroline was pregnant? Shit, Damon, I’m supposed to be your friend, your family, and you won’t talk to me!”

“To protect you!” Damon snaps, “You’ve finally found a little happiness, you’ve got kids on the way you’ve got everything you wanted, you deserved. Do you really need my melodramatic vampire bullshit bringing you down?”

“I need my best friend!” Ric snaps back, “You’re going through a lot, I get it, but newsflash, Damon, you’re not the only one! I’m about to have my entire life changed, and the only person I can talk to about how scared I am is too busy pretending he’s not here!” 

“So what do you want me to do? Hold your goddamn hand, kiss your boo-boos, and tell you everything will be fine, while I’m seeing old soldier buddies everywhere, telling me all I do is hurt people?” Damon asks.

“I just want you to be there.” Ric’s voice softens, “Broken, hurting, happy, sad, whatever. I don’t want you to cut me out of your life because you think it’s best for me. You don’t get to decide what’s best for me.”

Damon wants to argue, wants to scream at Ric and tell him to stop being so selfish, so bloody minded. He wants Henry to appear, to tell him that this is a bad idea, that he and Ric can’t be friends because he’ll just hurt him, hurt his babies, ruin his life again. This is the longest Henry has been away in days, it’s him, and it’s Ric and it’s almost normal.

“Damon, let me help you.” Ric rests his hand on Damon’s shoulder, “Just me and you, against the world. The way we used to be.”  
  
_The way we used to be._  
  
Damon’s reminded of late nights, of endless bottles of Maker’s Mark, and talking til dawn. He’s reminded of slow, lazy kisses, and empty promises of forever and running away from everything. He’s reminded of fights about Elena, about Jenna and Meredith, and other women who threaten to take everything they had. He’s reminded of the crypt, of how much it hurt to lose someone he felt was carved into his very soul. 

And of the way it felt when he thought Ric was never coming back, and of the only wish he ever had come true when Ric came back to him. 

“Ric, I’m scared.” Damon admits, and his voice sounds small and young, “I’m losing sight of who I am, of what’s real and what isn’t. I… oh God.”

The realisation of what he’s done, what he did to Elena suddenly hits him, ploughs into his chest like a freight train. 

“Fuck, Ric, I killed Elena. I killed her.” 

And this is it. He’s lost Ric forever, he’s lost the only person who keeps fighting to help him, who has come back from the dead for him. He’s lost the one person who kept looking for a way to bring him home when he was trapped in the prison world, the one person who was there for him and Bonnie. There’s no way he and Ric can come back from this. 

There’s a moment, a long moment that feels like it’s stretching out forever, where neither of them say anything. Damon can’t look at Ric, doesn’t want to look at anything, doesn’t want to be here with the guilt and the pain that has suddenly hit him.

It feels like a thousand eternities before Damon feels strong arms envelope him, and pull him close. 

It feels like another thousand before Damon can accept Ric is trying to comfort him, to simply hold him and let him grieve, rather than planning on staking him. (Though if he were to go in such a mundane way, he’d rather it be at the hand of someone this good).

Ric doesn’t say anything, and Damon’s thankful for it. He doesn’t want Ric to placate him, to tell him that what he did was okay. He doesn’t want Ric to tell him that what happened wasn’t his fault, that Henry, that Julian, the Phoenix stone had warped and broken his mind and what happened was simply a mental breakdown. 

Right now he just wants to live in this moment, to feel Ric’s arms around him, holding him and comforting him. There’s time for the rest later, there’s time for Ric to hate him, for him to sever all ties and run. 

Damon will worry about that when the time comes, but right now his mind is set on memorising the feeling of Ric’s arms around his body, and Ric’s heartbeat against his chest, and for the first time in months, his brain is silent.

**Author's Note:**

> Do come join me on [Tumblr](http://damnstevens.tumblr.com), where we shall rant about this some more, yes?


End file.
